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This week I met with the ITS staff of Davidson College. The ITS staff was very informative about Davidson's privacy policy regarding email and internet use. I found out that Davidson has does provide a great deal of privacy to students' emails, however they do have the legal right to access student emails. In the last ten years, I was told that ITS has not had to access any student emails for any reasons except for the exception of being subpoenaed or as a result of an honor council verdict. It seems to tie in with the honor code here at Davidson that students are held to a higher standard and trusted. This results in Davidson's policy of reserving the right to access student emails, yet on the other working to protect their privacy. This leaves me in an interesting position regarding my thesis because it seems that Davidson does not have a need for any email monitoring. If anyone has any ideas for how to refocus my topic that would be greatly appreciated.

I will delve into the controversial issue of Davidson college administrators monitoring student emails. My thesis, that it is unethical for college administrators to create a power structure by accessing and releasing information from student's emails.  My intended audience is fellow Davidson classmates, who are interested under what circumstances their emails are opened and what is done with their information.  I will give a brief description of the legal ethics behind email privacy, focusing on specific student examples and relevant consequences of such court cases. In addition, I will look into the specified conditions under which student email are searched and accessed. In regards to my research, I will interview the ITS staff in charge of monitoring the emails. These primary sources will give me information regarding under what circumstances emails are monitored, the method of searching for through emails and what is done with these emails. On the other hand, if they do not give me this information it compounds the unfairness of the situation by giving administrators access to our emails with very little accountability or transparency.  In addition, I will use articles from the legal information databases and personal cases to give a background of the legality of email privacy.

What would be resources for my research topic: Its wrong for colleges such as Davidson to monitor their students email accounts. I am looking for resources such as court cases dealing with the subject and privacy laws. Also, anyone who has any interesting ways to narrow this topic would be greatly appreciated.

 Langdon Winner questions the idea that certain objects are inherently political. Winner states that most objects are not political but their users may make it appear this way. However, under certain conditions technologies themselves can be political. I believe that Winner would respond to my research topic: It is not right for colleges to monitor student emails, by asking me to delve into the context that the technology was developed and its intended purpose.